Before the Dawn
by ImpishTubist
Summary: Spoilers for "Reichenbach": On the night before his fall, Sherlock goes to Mycroft with a request - and a farewell. Sherlock/Mycroft.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

**Warnings:** Incest, Implied Sex, Language

**Spoilers:** For "Reichenbach"

* * *

><p>Mycroft was used, by now, to Sherlock coming into his home unannounced. He always knew about it ahead of time, of course, but he allowed his brother the sport of breaking and entering; the impression that he was getting away with it.<p>

Sherlock came on this night well after darkness had fallen and the fire in Mycroft's study had burned down to glowing, feeble embers. Mycroft watched on his security cameras as Sherlock entered through the doorway off the kitchen as opposed to the front door - a sure indicator of his brother's mood. The front door was for when he was in need of an audience; of putting on a show for his brother's staff, flaunting the fact that he was able to slip in unnoticed under their careful watch.

But coming in as inconspicuously as possible, furtively and hidden in the shadows - no, Sherlock was in no mood for games tonight.

"What is it you want?" Mycroft sighed when Sherlock finally appeared in the doorway to his study, his face chapped from the unseasonably chilly wind and his eyes over-bright from the cold.

"I need to die."

Mycroft lifted an eyebrow, half-amused. "You do have a knack for saying the most outrageous things, dear brother."

Sherlock scowled. He still hadn't moved from the doorway, where he loomed, ethereal, his skin waxy in the soft light from the lamps and his coat collar pulled up to frame his high cheekbones. He tugged off his gloves with painstaking slowness, plucking at them one finger at a time, drawing them delicately off his slender hands. It was several moments before he came fully into the room, and when he did he shed his coat and draped it over the back of an upholstered chair. Mycroft felt his eyebrows inch toward his hairline.

"Planning on a lengthy visit, are we?"

"Yes," Sherlock told him. He braced his hands on his hips as he stared down at where Mycroft was sitting. His feet were slightly spread; his stance, defiant. "We have business to discuss. You're going to help me die."

"And why," Mycroft said calmly, his mouth twitching in bemusement, "would you need to do something so absurd?"

"Because that's the _final problem_, Mycroft," Sherlock hissed at him, eyes flashing in the dim light.

"Talking in riddles will get you nowhere."

"Then I'll stop talking." Sherlock raised slim hands to his chest and, with quick flicks of his fingers, undid the buttons of his shirt until it hung open down his sternum. He lifted a pointed eyebrow at Mycroft, who swallowed thickly around the cotton that suddenly filled his mouth.

"I see," he murmured, pushing himself out of his chair and trying to ignore his suddenly-snug trousers as he crossed the distance to his brother. He met Sherlock's sharp gaze and held up his hand, inquiring. Sherlock inclined his head and, having received permission, Mycroft slid the rest of the buttons from their holds and tugged the shirt from the confines of Sherlock's trousers. It hung open, revealing the ripples of a taut abdomen and a vast expanse of porcelain skin, marred here and there with the angry white streak of an old scar.

"May I?" Mycroft murmured, and at Sherlock's assenting _hmm_ he slid his hands into his brother's shirt and cupped the lean hips, cradling them in his grip. Sherlock allowed himself to be pulled closer until bare skin came into contact with designer threads and Mycroft's need found friction against his leg. He ground in lethargic circles against the tightly-muscled thigh, his hip pressed against the noticeably flat plane of the front of his brother's trousers. Sherlock wouldn't get off tonight; he rarely ever got more than half-hard. Sex was boring for him; a messy inconvenience that was tolerable with Mycroft because the elder Holmes was the only one who could stimulate Sherlock's mind, providing for him a mental release while Sherlock gave him a physical one.

"How long?" Mycroft whispered.

Sherlock traced his brow with an elegant finger. "Until dawn."

Mycroft pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of Sherlock's mouth, stilling the motion of his own hips and keeping himself carefully in check. It wouldn't do to get carried away now, not when they had the entire night before them.

Sherlock heaved an audible sigh and nudged Mycroft's jaw with his chin, attempting to bring their mouths into alignment. Mycroft gripped his chin, holding Sherlock's head immobile and murmuring, "Slow down. We have time."

He backed Sherlock up until his brother's arse came into contact with the ancient mahogany desk, all the while trailing careful and methodical kisses along the shadowed jaw. Strange; Sherlock rarely ever allowed his stubble to become noticeable, and Mycroft found the unfamiliar sensation of his lips catching on the tiny hairs enticing. His cock gave an interested twitch as he found the pulse-point in Sherlock's neck and laid his tongue over it, feeling the steady throb quicken under his touch.

"Get on with it already," Sherlock growled impatiently, and in response Mycroft moved his ministrations to a small patch of skin just below Sherlock's ear, teasing with teeth and tongue until his brother's breathing hitched.

"Patience, brother mine," he whispered against the sweet skin, tasting salt and smelling sweat as he pushed Sherlock's shirt off his shoulders and tossed it over his shoulder. He sucked a mark into the hollow of Sherlock's throat, a sensitive spot that elicited a ragged gasp from his brother. "I suggest we move this upstairs. Don't you agree?"

Sherlock's fingers threaded into his hair. He tugged, pulling Mycroft back until his arousal-clouded gaze met Sherlock's clear one.

"I take it my terms are acceptable?"

It was foolish to pretend to himself that he could ever say _no_ to his brother, but he appreciated that Sherlock allowed him the illusion.

"Yes," he said, his voice raw even to his own ears. "_Yes._"

xxxx

He woke, much later, to Sherlock's form silhouetted against the window, bare except for the cigarette smoke that swirled languidly around his body.

"I thought I made it plain there was to be no smoking in this house," Mycroft reprimanded, quietly and without conviction. Sherlock blew a long stream of smoke out of the corner of his mouth in response.

"What makes you think," he said in a hoarse voice, "that I give a _damn_ about your rules?"

"I _am _helping to arrange your death."

"And I just let you fuck me, quite literally, into the mattress. Repeatedly." Sherlock stubbed out the cigarette on the windowsill and dragged a dressing gown over his thin shoulders. "Show a little gratitude, brother."

"I could ask the same of you." Mycroft watched him for a moment. Sherlock remained by the window, staring out onto the darkened grounds. He had never before lingered for so long after the act, and if Mycroft didn't know any better he would say that his brother was exhibiting signs of...reluctance. "How long will you be gone?"

"You know very well I don't have the answer to that," Sherlock snapped. He crossed his arms over his chest and added, quietly, "As long as it takes. Perhaps forever."

"I could help -"

"No," Sherlock said sharply, turning to face him. "No. This is my fight. I'll not have you brought into it as well."

"One could argue that I'm in quite deeply already."

Sherlock strode over to the bed. Mycroft propped himself up on his elbows to better stare down his hovering brother.

"Are you certain there is nothing I can say that will change your mind?" Mycroft asked at last.

"That's a foolish endeavor and you know it, Mycroft."

He shivered at the sound of his name on Sherlock's lips and reached out a hand. Sherlock took it, tangling their fingers together, and Mycroft pulled him back onto the bed.

"In that case," he murmured as the scent of Sherlock's hair - apples and sweat and cigarette smoke - washed over him, "come here, brother mine."

Sherlock ducked his head and captured Mycroft's mouth in a clumsy kiss that was more teeth than tongue and with the force of it pressed Mycroft back against the mattress. And Mycroft, sensing his desperation as well as the coming dawn, curled a hand around the back of Sherlock's neck and drew him down until he was sprawled on the bed once again and Mycroft loomed above him. He mapped Sherlock with fingers and tongue, tracing the hard ridges of his stomach and sharp, twin points of his hipbones. He pressed gentle lips to his brother's instep and sucked a mark into his shoulder that Sherlock would carry with him for days. Mycroft memorized every scar and blemish; retained every gasp and sigh that slipped, unbidden, from Sherlock's throat.

And later, much later, when Sherlock had finally gone, Mycroft drew his fingers across his bruised lips, tasting ash in his mouth feeling the hollow remains of the fire that had once burned hot in his chest. He was cold and empty.

Snuffed out, like the cigarette.

xxxx

Three years passed; more than Mycroft would have liked, but less than he had initially predicted.

Three years of silence; three years of dialing an out-of-service number and of sending texts that never found their recipient.

Three years of nights spent in an empty bed; of quiet corridors and barren rooms that had rarely ever seen Sherlock anyway but which nonetheless served as markers of his absence simply because he _couldn't_ be there.

Three years spent in a house Mycroft could no longer call his home because he didn't recognize it without Sherlock.

And then one day Mycroft woke before dawn in a room that was a little less cold and in a house that was a bit less unfamiliar. Even the bleak, grey line of dawn on the horizon looked welcoming as he stared out across his estate before making his way downstairs.

"Did you really believe I wouldn't return?"

There were a million other places Sherlock should have been right at that moment, Mycroft's mind registered dully as he stepped into his study to find Sherlock perched on his desk, cigarette dangling from his lips and coat collar turned up in the familiar fashion. He should have been with John, who had taken six months to work up the courage to move back into Baker Street after Sherlock's death and who couldn't hear the name spoken aloud for close to a year afterwards. He should have been with Lestrade, who had lost first his job and then himself, falling back on the alcohol as a way to cope. He should have been with Mrs. Hudson, whose health had been declining in recent months.

He should _not_ have been sitting here, in his brother's study, looking as though their final night together had been yesterday and not three years ago.

"I -" And for the first time in his life, Mycroft found that he didn't know what to say.

Sherlock huffed in amusement and stubbed the cigarette out on the desk before pushing himself off it and walking over to his brother. His face was grave, Mycroft noted; somber, the usual spark in his eyes dulled with years of stress and loneliness. But the faint yellow beams of dawn illuminated the high windows behind Sherlock and lit his flyaway curls on fire until he appeared to be glowing. Mycroft's breath hitched, and as the familiar scent invaded his nostrils once again - apples, cigarette smoke, sweat - he felt a faint prickling behind his eyes.

When they finally came together they crashed, all teeth and tongue and erratic exploration, each marking what was his. It was a greeting as much as it was a reassurance, for as Sherlock gave way under Mycroft's insistent tongue and opened his mouth to his brother, Mycroft could taste that the years had little changed him. He still tasted of ash and tea; his lips were cold but his mouth was searing, threatening to burn Mycroft from the inside as he always had.

Mycroft welcomed the fire.

They broke apart, though Mycroft's hands remained buried in Sherlock's hair - _long, too long, what has he been doing all these years? _- and Sherlock's remained at his hips, holding him in place. Sherlock panted, sweet breath ghosting across his brother's face while Mycroft struggled to bring his own breathing under control.

"I had to," Sherlock gasped. "I had to come back."

Outside, the sun gave one final push, and morning exploded over the horizon.


End file.
